


Under Wraps

by Steals_Thyme (Liodain)



Category: Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Crossdressing, Hurt/Comfort, Kink Meme, M/M, Pre-Roche, Sexual Repression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-28
Updated: 2010-04-28
Packaged: 2017-10-09 06:48:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liodain/pseuds/Steals_Thyme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rorschach wears satin panties. No, really. This is an important piece of my head canon. Where are you going? Come back! D:</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under Wraps

They're disgusting, all frothy lace and sleek black satin that is difficult to stitch, slips the needle and snarls around the workings of his machine no matter how he holds it. These frilled things are designed for men, not the women who wear them—furtive, sweaty men who pay to see the shining fabric filled out with fat curves, elastic biting into fleshy skin. It's galling that he has to construct them, knowing all that, but even more so because he has to admit to himself: he prefers them to the brassieres. At least the satin is—

Walter pulls the fabric taut and drives it through his sewing machine, deliberately passing over the same spot again and again until the thread bulges in ugly ridges and the satin buckles and snags, begins to shear. Until it doesn't feel quite as smooth against his rough fingertips, doesn't feel quite so like—

"Kovacs!" his boss barks, far too close to his ear, and Walter jerks the panties away in alarm. Long trails of thread reel out in their wake and lie in spidery tangles against his arm. He apologizes, subservience gritted out from between clenched teeth; he never reduces himself to the groveling that would save him from compulsory overtime.

Later, in his rathole apartment, he relaxes his bunched fist and the underwear unfurls over his hand. No ribbon or lace on this pair he has made, no trim to distract from the warmed luster of the dark satin. He sits, drapes them over one bony knee and rubs them with the heel of his hand, drags idle circles with his fingers.

It's fine like this; hard planes beneath the sleekness, not the give of doughy, feminine flesh. Pulled over muscle and sinew, it becomes something else, nothing more deviant than the inside of his jacket or the soft lining of his gloves. It is reclaimed as something honest, baptized in the heat of justice.

This makes it more bearable to touch them all day.

The sun is setting. It will be time soon.

-

"No," Rorschach says, and bats Nite Owl's hand away, hauls himself up from the asphalt. He digs his fingers into the alley brickwork and tries not to give away how much pain he is in.

"Don't be an idiot," Nite Owl says, his mouth bowed unhappily, pulling down and pressing worry-lines into his face. His hand is straying again, gripping the hem of Rorschach's trench, lifting. "He got you, I can see the blood. Come on, man. Let me take a look."

Stupid mistake, stepping over the kid without being certain he was out cold, without kicking the knife away first. Stupid, rookie mistake and he's glad he'll have a scar to remind him of his foolishness. "No," he says again, pushing away emphatically.

There _is_ a lot of blood, warm and damp against his inner thigh, sticky against leather when he presses his gloved hand to the wound. He's starting to feel dizzy, nauseous, and that's the only reason he lets Nite Owl pull his arm over his shoulders and guide him to the Archimedes.

He's pushed in the co-pilot seat before he knows where he is, and Nite Owl is muttering—something about holding on, it's okay, I got you buddy—and he is pulling Rorschach's trench coat aside, clumsily fumbling open the buttons of his suit jacket, still with his gauntlets on. He is still frowning, but there's a different edge to his expression now. Rorschach doesn't like it.

Rorschach freezes up when Nite Owl starts on the fly of his pinstripes, tugging frustratedly, and there's a reason he shouldn't let him do this, something about standards of appropriateness mixed up with ideas of his self-image and the boundaries that their partnership should observe, but it's nebulous, drifting out of his grasp like so much smoke.

His vision is graying, sharpening and dulling in turn. Sensation is narrowed to the throb of his leg in time with his breathing and Nite Owl's breathing, and the small agitated noise Nite Owl makes when he finds the suspenders, thumbs the buttons free.

A sharp intake of air, and it's hard to focus but he thinks it was Nite Owl who made the noise, and not himself. Nite Owl is hovering, hand poised over Rorschach's thigh, suddenly apprehensive. Beneath the unreadable dark glass of his goggles, his mouth opens wordlessly.

Rorschach thinks, disconnectedly, that he must be hurt pretty badly.

Nite Owl's tongue darts over his lower lip. It's arresting and obscene, and it's the last thing he remembers.

-

He has never been here during the day. He only visits Daniel when he is Rorschach, and he is usually only Rorschach after dark, so it's disorienting, sets his reality at a slant when the morning sun plays across his masked face. It is increasingly unnerving when he shifts and feels the slide of bedclothes against bare skin. He cracks his eyes open, and sees his uniform folded neatly at the end of the bed.

He swallows thickly, shifts again. There's the telltale pull of sutures in his left thigh, and a towel beneath him, stiff and rasping against his legs. He grunts, slides a hand down to check the damage. His chest and torso are still covered by his undershirt. Daniel spared him the indignity of being stripped entirely naked, but he is unhappy with the unnecessary revelation of freckles and red hair.

His fingers travel further down, glide over the fabric at his hips. He stops short, and the breath rushes out of him.

He is too hot suddenly, face and neck prickling with it, and when he heaves himself into a sitting position, he can't shake his lightheadedness. He curls his fingers into the hem of his mask, pulls it over his nose to sip at the air. He is too horrified to make a sound.

Daniel appears in the doorway, dowdy in a knitted cardigan and shapeless slacks, a glass of water in one hand. "Hey." A relieved smile spreads across his face.

He moves over to the bed, offers the water. Rorschach takes it cautiously, holds it between both hands as he drinks. Daniel crouches by the bed and takes off his glasses to clean them on his sleeve. Rorschach is familiar with most of Daniel's nervous habits through long association, but this one would be obvious even to a stranger.

"So, uh. How are you feeling?" He's blinking at the middle distance, glasses hovering halfway to his face. "You gave me a bit of a scare."

Rorschach ignores the overture as best he can, as conversation is not something he is inclined to at present. He slurps the last drops of water from the glass, deliberately uncouth.

A sigh, more exasperated than weary. "Listen," Daniel says, and Rorschach can tell he's trying to infuse his words with Nite Owl's confidence. He obviously doesn't realize that he sounds the way he does when he's talking to one of the wretches they rescue on a nightly basis. It rankles, and Rorschach responds accordingly.

"No."

"No...? Oh. Well, okay. I, uh, just wanted to say..."

It occurs to Rorschach that Daniel can be poor at picking up on certain cues. He emphatically does not want to listen to him, but short of putting his hands over his ears like a child, there's not much he can do about it.

"I'm not going to judge you for...uh. I'm not going to judge. I admit it's not what I was expecting—I thought you'd be a tighty whiteys kind of guy, if I'm honest with you—but hell, I wear mine on the _outside_ of my pants, so I'm hardly in a position..."

Reality tilts a little too far to the left, and Rorschach finds himself wondering why Daniel would have occasion to consider the kind of underwear he favors. He fixes his partner with a withering stare, lets the ink speak for him.

Daniel licks his lips, and Rorschach finds that his mouth is dry.

"...I'll get you more water."

-

It's a long time until he dares to wear satin again; long enough that the shame of being discovered has dulled into something he can endure, even when he mentally prods at it. He is not naïve enough to think that Daniel has forgotten, but they don't speak of it and that is good enough for him.

Until tonight. Tonight has gone...awry.

"Please, tell me," Nite Owl says, breathless, hands curling into the lapels of Rorschach's trench. He's flushed under the cowl, and not from adrenaline and exertion as Rorschach had initially thought. He leans in so close that Rorschach can feel warm breath on his cheek, right through the mask. "I just—it's driving me crazy. I gotta know, are you wearing them? Right now?"

He should feel scandalized, furious and objectified. He should say nothing and shrug Nite Owl off, question his proclivities. He doesn't understand, there should be nothing sexual in this, nothing _titillating_; it's about something purer, something—

It's not about—and yet—

Rorschach's face is burning, and now he can't deny anything because his traitor mask has given him away, the blots swimming heavily over his cheeks.

He nods, and it's just the truth, nothing more. Yes. Yes, he is wearing them.

"God," Nite Owl groans. He insinuates his hand under Rorschach's coat and palms his hip, thumb rubbing over his pinstripes as though he can feel the slip of satin right through the gabardine.

Rorschach grabs Nite Owl's wrist in a vise-grip. There's an unbalanced moment where he thinks he's going to break it, but then Nite Owl smiles, crescent-moon mouth under the deep sheen of his goggles, and lets Rorschach guide his hand.


End file.
